The MBOSE results announced recently reflect the rot in the educational system. The results are a cumulative effect of decades of political interference in appointment of teachers, permanency of tenure without performance outcomes, selection of text books on the basis of pressure from publishers and complete lack of supervision by the Education Department, leading to apathy of school administrators, especially those running on government grants. Private schools cannot afford to slacken because they charge a fee from each student and they also compete with one another, hence their students tend to do well. Parents that can afford to send their children to private schools are also inclined to keenly follow what their children are taught because they want value for money.
The majority of parents that send their children to government funded schools do so as a last resort. In fact given a choice every parent would like to send their kids to private schools because they know that teachers are appointed on merit and not through political clout. The Education Scam some years ago where every politician wanted teachers to be appointed from his/her constituency actually mirrors a society that is so apathetic it would not even protest to call out this outrage. It was left to the teachers who found themselves jettisoned from the merit list in the infamous overwriting with white ink and insertion of names of those candidate favoured by politicians, to take legal resource. It is ironic that while in Haryana the former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, his MLA son Ajay, and three other officials were sentenced to ten years in prison by a special CBI court on charges of illegally recruiting over 3,000 teachers in the state by using forged documents in 2013, here in Meghalaya the offenders continue to remain unpunished for doing the very same thing. Although the number of teachers recruited in Government run schools was relatively lesser in Meghalaya but the very fact that merit was given a wide berth in this state too is demoralizing for teacher candidates and for the whole state.
But expectedly, civil society here remained mute although this action of recruiting teachers based on political influence affects the children of those who rely heavily on government aided institutions. There should have been a clamour by parents to institute an enquiry. But it was only one or two organizations, notably the Civil Society Women’s Organisation (CSWO) that actually followed up on this case.
Teaching is not a job – it’s a calling that few people have, yet because the remuneration is poor and the salaries so irregularly paid in deficit schools, the best brains opt for secure government employment. All these factors need to be considered and there should be a hands-off policy for politicians to stop meddling with appointment of teachers. In fact anyone doing so deserves public censure.